33 Facts About Fritz Lang

Fritz Lang has been cited as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time.

Fritz Lang's most celebrated films include the futuristic science-fiction film Metropolis and the influential M, a film noir precursor.

Fritz Lang became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939.

Fritz Lang was baptized on December 28,1890, at the Schottenkirche in Vienna.

Ultimately describing himself as an atheist, Fritz Lang believed that religion was important for teaching ethics.

Fritz Lang left Vienna in 1910 to travel throughout Europe and Africa, later Asia and the Pacific area.

Fritz Lang was arrested by the French authorities as an "enemy alien," but escaped to Vienna, where he was drafted into the Imperial Austrian Army.

At the outbreak of World War I, Fritz Lang returned to Vienna and volunteered for military service in the Austrian Army, fighting in Russia and Romania.

Fritz Lang was wounded four times and lost sight in his right eye, when he then saw a Max Reinhardt show for injured soldiers and played in a Red Cross revue.

Fritz Lang briefly acted in the Viennese theater circuit before being hired as a writer at Decla Film, Erich Pommer's Berlin-based production company.

On 13 February 1919, in the Marriage Registry Office in Charlottenburg, Berlin, Fritz Lang married a theater actress named Elisabeth Rosenthal.

Fritz Lang started work as a director at the German film studio UFA, and later Nero-Film, just as the Expressionist movement was building.

In 1920, Fritz Lang met his future second wife, the writer Thea von Harbou through director Joe May Harbou co-wrote and directed the film Das wandernde Bild with Fritz Lang.

Fritz Lang co-wrote every Harbou-Lang film till 1933, including Dr Mabuse, der Spieler, the five-hour Die Nibelungen, the dystopian film Metropolis, and the science fiction film Woman in the Moon.

Fritz Lang's first "talking" picture, considered by many film scholars to be a masterpiece of the early sound era, M is a story of a child murderer who is hunted down and brought to justice by Berlin's criminal underworld.

Fritz Lang started having an affair with the Austrian actress Gerda Maurus during the filming of Spione.

Testament is occasionally deemed an anti-Nazi film, as Fritz Lang had put Nazi phrases into the mouth of the title character.

Fritz Lang claimed that, after selling his wife's jewelry, he fled by train to Paris that evening, leaving most of his money and personal possessions behind.

Fritz Lang left Berlin permanently on July 31,1933, four months after his meeting with Goebbels and his initial departure.

Fritz Lang moved to Paris, having divorced Thea von Harbou, who stayed behind, earlier in 1933.

In Paris, Fritz Lang filmed his only French film, a version of Ferenc Molnar's Liliom, starring Charles Boyer.

Fritz Lang made twenty-two features in his 20-year American career, working in a variety of genres at every major studio in Hollywood, and occasionally producing his films as an independent.

Fritz Lang became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939.

One of Fritz Lang's most praised films noir is the police drama The Big Heat, known for its brutality.

The German producer Artur Brauner had expressed interest in remaking The Indian Tomb, so Fritz Lang returned to Germany to make his "Indian Epic".

The result was The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse, whose success led to a series of new Mabuse films produced by Brauner, though Fritz Lang did not direct any of the sequels.

Fritz Lang was approaching blindness during the production, and it was his final project as director.

On February 8,1960, Fritz Lang received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the motion picture industry, located at 1600 Vine Street.

Fritz Lang died from a stroke on August 2,1976, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles.

Fritz Lang is credited with launching or developing many different genres of film.

Philip French of The Observer believed that Fritz Lang helped craft the "entertainment war flick" and that his interpretation of the story of Bonnie and Clyde "helped launch the Hollywood film noir".

In December 2021, Fritz Lang was the subject for BBC Radio 4's In Our Time.

The Academy Film Archive has preserved a number of Fritz Lang's films, including Human Desire and Man Hunt.